This year’s presidential election will be the first since generative AI — a form of artificial intelligence that can create new content, including images, audio, and video — became widely available. That’s raising fears that millions of voters could be deceived by a barrage of political deepfakes.

But, while Congress has done little to address the issue, states are moving aggressively to respond — though questions remain about how effective any new measures to combat AI-created disinformation will be.

Kate Yandell, a SciCheck staff writer, appeared on the CBS News affiliate in Philadelphia to discuss the dangers of health misinformation on social media platforms.

Stephanie Stahl, a health reporter for CBS News Philadelphia, interviewed Yandell as part of the news station’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court arguments on March 18 in Murthy v. Missouri — a lawsuit brought by Republican-led states that challenges whether the federal government can work with social media platforms to address controversial online posts on topics such as COVID-19 and vaccinations.

It’s Election Day in Arizona and elderly voters in Maricopa County are told by phone that local polling places are closed due to threats from militia groups.

Meanwhile, in Miami, a flurry of photos and videos on social media show poll workers dumping ballots.

The phone calls in Arizona and the videos in Florida turn out to be “deepfakes” created with artificial intelligence tools. But by the time local and federal authorities figure out what they are dealing with, the false information has gone viral across the country.

Google is restricting its Gemini AI chatbot from answering election-related questions in countries where voting is taking place this year, limiting users from receiving information about candidates, political parties and other elements of politics.

“Out of an abundance of caution on such an important topic, we have begun to roll out restrictions on the types of election-related queries for which Gemini will return responses,” Google’s India team stated on the company’s site.

‘We definitely messed up’: why did Google AI tool make offensive historical images?

Google is restricting AI chatbot Gemini from answering questions about the global elections set to happen this year, the Alphabet-owned firm (GOOGL.O), opens new tab said on Tuesday, as it looks to avoid potential missteps in the deployment of the technology.

The update comes at a time when advancements in generative AI, including image and video generation, have fanned concerns of misinformation and fake news among the public, prompting governments to regulate the technology.

Google announced Tuesday it will be restricting its new artificial intelligence chatbot Gemini from answering election-related questions globally.

“Out of an abundance of caution on such an important topic, we have begun to roll out restrictions on the types of election-related queries for which Gemini will return responses,” the company wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. 

On Monday, a BBC investigation highlighted what it called an emerging disinformation trend in the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign: fake, apparently AI-generated images purporting to show Donald Trump posing with Black people. 

Donald Trump supporters have been creating and sharing AI-generated fake images of black voters to encourage African Americans to vote Republican.

BBC Panorama discovered dozens of deepfakes portraying black people as supporting the former president.

Mr Trump has openly courted black voters, who were key to Joe Biden's election win in 2020.

But there's no evidence directly linking these images to Mr Trump's campaign.

Supporters of former President Donald Trump are spreading artificial intelligence-generated photos of him surrounded by black voters to drum up extra support, according to a report.

The now-viral AI pictures show the former president hugging or posing with smiling black Americans, suggesting the fake people are supporters.

Cliff Albright, the co-founder of a group called Black Voters Matter, called the manipulated images a “strategic narrative” aimed at perpetuating a specific lie — that Trump is popular among young black voters, according to the BBC.

Most of the Spanish-language misinformation about immigration that Latinos see on social media or listen to on the radio seems to largely mirror the falsehoods spread by right-wing media outlets in English, according to two groups tracking misinformation in Spanish.